


California Dreamin'

by Vengeful_Vulpix



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Sad Ending, graphic description of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26609908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vengeful_Vulpix/pseuds/Vengeful_Vulpix
Summary: "I wish it was nighttime," Wilson muttered through chattering teeth, so quiet that Maxwell wouldn’t have heard him if the world around them were not so quiet. "Charlie would end this faster.""And take the simple way out, pal? Unlike you."
Relationships: Maxwell/Wilson (Don't Starve)
Kudos: 27





	California Dreamin'

**Author's Note:**

> This is a much older fic of mine, when I was still experimenting with my Diet Coke Romantic-Era style of writing. Take it with a grain of salt, as I did little to no research while writing this.

They were dying.  
Maxwell had seen it coming the moment he and Wilson had run out of twigs, grass, logs, petals… every combustible resource too far away to even run to. They had no beefalo wool for hats, no rocks for thermal stones, just an empty stone firepit with ashes from days gone by ingrained into its center.  
Now, here they were, sprawled on the rough ground, shivering and shaking in ice-packed snow almost a foot deep. Wilson, flat on his back, glaring at the dingy, gray sky with eyes that had ceased seeing several moments ago. Maxwell, only managing to stay upright by leaning on his locked, bowed knees. He swallowed his diminished pride and shifted to hold Wilson's cold, limp hand in his own, hoping to soothe the other man in their last moments.  
"R... Remember on the Nightmare Throne... When they'd... Show you everything? For that one moment, you knew the past, the present, the future."  
Wilson stammered on, his voice becoming more unintelligible as he tried to stave off the imminent.  
"Of course, of course... Maybe if I was a tad brighter, I would have seen this moment coming."  
Maxwell replied, a sad smile gracing his features. Wilson, not having heard what Maxwell said, just smiled back at him. There was a comfortable silence, the only sound being the rustling of the stoic pine trees from the distant forest and the snow-birds chirping around the two men, no longer acknowledging them.  
"I wish it was nighttime," Wilson muttered through chattering teeth, so quiet that Maxwell would not have heard him if he weren't an inch away from the other.  
"Charlie would end this faster." Wilson added. Maxwell shook his head in response, patting Wilson on the head as gently as he could, through his ridiculous hair, that was remarkably still in place. Maxwell couldn't tell how lightly he had pat Wilson, as his hands had gone numb a long time ago. Maxwell figured Wilson wasn't feeling a lot, either.  
"And take the simple way out, pal? Unlike you." Maxwell said, pulling his arms towards his chest, trying to stay warm, to no avail. Only then did he notice Wilson's breathing picking up, like it was being forced. He looked at Wilson with an expression of sympathy that the scientist would've been astounded by if he had noticed it.  
"... Go to sleep now, pal."  
"I don't want to…" Wilson whined in response, not unlike a toddler. Maxwell sighed, reaching out of the ball he had rolled himself into to fold Wilson's hands over his chest, like a lovely, shivering corpse.  
"Don't get fussy now, pal. You'll feel much better when you wake up."  
As per instructions, Wilson slept. His breathing slowed down, crawling to a complete stop. He stopped shivering, hands no longer twitching to keep a sense of this mortal realm. Maxwell sighed and closed Wilson's eyes respectfully with one swift hand motion. Maxwell distantly remembered having to do that quite a lot when he was ruler of this world, when he served as the Grim Reaper to this endless Hell.  
Maxwell closed his own eyes, grimacing as images of his life flooded through his head. Of Charlie… before she had become the Grue, before she became the personification of Night itself. One moment seemed to play through his head repeatedly, of a chilly day in California, and Charlie, being the dainty house flower she was, shivering and shaking. Maxwell smiled genuinely back then. He took off his coat to give it to her, bearing the cold himself. Kind of ironic, he thought, given his current situation.  
"See you when we wake, Wilson." Maxwell murmured, now out of his trance, to the corpse next to him. He slowly, shakily moved to lie down, all without opening his eyes, and waited for his merely temporary death.


End file.
